Product Description
-------------------
Get ready for unlimited thrills and chills as all six of
Universal's classic Inner Sanctum Mysteries come to DVD for the
first time ever. You'll have a hauntingly good time with horror
icon Lon Chaney, Jr., as he gives timeless performances in these
spooky feature-length films: Calling Dr. Death, Weird Woman, Dead
Man's Eyes, The Frozen Ghost, Strange Confession and Pillow of
Death. Based on the popular radio shows of the 1940's, this
collectible set is a must-own for every classic mystery and
horror fan. Death, dementia, dark arts…it's just another day in
the forbidding and fascinating world of the Inner Sanctum!
Calling Dr. Death (1943): A distraught doctor is tormented by
voices in his head that are urging him to end his unhappy
marriage - forever. Weird Woman (1944): Sorcery and superstition
take a walk down the aisle when a professor marries a woman
raised in the jungle by voodoo witchcraft practitioners and then
dismisses her ominous warnings. Dead Man's Eyes (1944): When an
artist loses his in a freak accident, his future
her-in-law promises to bequeath his own eyes upon his death -
which ends up being much, much sooner than anyone could foresee.
The Frozen Ghost (1945): Things are certainly not what they seem
when a hypnotist takes refuge in the spectacular mansion of a
female friend who made her money from a creepy wax museum.
Strange Confession (1945): A brilliant chemist with the key to
the cure for influenza is force to take drastic measures when his
greedy boss prematurely releases the unfinished drug to the
public. Pillow of Death (1945): A psychopathic killer is on the
loose, so the eccentric and wealthy Kincaid family calls in a
psychic investigator to put an end to the mysterious murders
haunting their household.
.com
----
"This is the Inner Sanctum...." And this is the world of
B-movies, where Hollywood studios churned out entertaining little
numbers to fill out an evening back in the Golden Age.
Universal's Inner Sanctum series, released in 1943-45, was
inspired by the successful radio show of the same title. They're
gathered on Inner Sanctum Mysteries: The Complete Movie
Collection, a fun grouping of a minor cinematic achievement.
All six films star the phlegmatic Lon Chaney Jr., and most begin
with a floating head in the crystal ball, welcoming us to the
inner sanctum, "A strange, fantastic world, controlled by a mass
of living, pulsating ... the mind." The vaguely supernatural
promise of this grabby opening is rarely fulfilled by the movies,
which tend to be acceptable murder mysteries with--despite the
wacky titles--very little horror content. Chaney plays a man of
some distinction (a professor in Weird Woman, famous mentalist in
The Frozen Ghost, physician in Calling Dr. Death) who runs afoul
of women (among them Evelyn Ankers and Patricia Morison) and
murder. At some point in each movie he has some elaborate
voice-over agony, making clear the connection to the radio
series' interior monologue. The one-hour-and-change productions
are handsome, considering their budget restrictions, and
Universal's prints are well-preserved; the literacy of the
writing is surprisingly high--although decent writing can't put
much zip into the proceedings.
Weird Woman is probably the best of the bunch, an adaptation of
Fritz Leiber's novel Conjure Wife (later filmed as Burn, Witch,
Burn!). Chaney is an expert on superstition who marries a
voodoo-obsessed woman, whose spells might be responsible for his
rapid professional rise. The influence of Cat People is as strong
as the source novel. Calling Dr. Death, the first in the series,
is duller, with a hypnotism-minded Chaney bedeviled by a wanton
wife who conveniently dies under mysterious circumstances. Dead
Man's Eyes and the amazingly-titled Pillow of Death are more fun,
the former a variation on the old eye-trans story and the
latter a whodunit with lawyer Chaney accused of his wife's murder
(the supernatural touch this time: séances).
Strange Confession has Chaney as an honest chemist battling an
evil ceutical tycoon (J. Carrol Naish), and The Frozen
Ghost combines two horror stes, the unstable mentalist and the
wax museum. It's just crazy enough to be entertaining, even if
there's no ghost (and hardly any freezing). All in all, the DVD
set is a good look at Universal's second-tier output of the era.
And then there's Chaney, whose jowly steadfastness can become
weirdly fascinating if you watch a few of these close together.
Universal put him hard to work after the success of 1941's The
Wolf Man, and alongside his monster-movie excursions and his
singular triumph in Of Mice and Men, the Inner Sanctum pictures
represent Chaney's best moment as a leading man. Despite his
limitations, he'll always have his spot in the Universal galaxy.
--Robert Horton